Usefulness of spatial econometrics in the regional science framework

During the last forty years, there has been an outstanding methodological development in regional and urban economics. This fact has fostered the necessity of working with cross-section data. When using this kind of data,spatial effects could arise: spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence. Whereas the first effect could be solved by means of standard econometric techniques, spatial dependence requires a specific econometric treatment/strategy. Spatial econometrics provides appropriate techniques for testing and estimating in presence of spatial dependence. Although there has been a notable development in this field in the last two decades, spatial econometrics is far from classical econometrics in terms of its knowledge, diffusion and use in regional economic research. This work aims at contributing to the diffusion of spatial econometric techniques in our country, showing a briefly survey of the main theoretical contributions appeared in monographic and different specialised journals.